


from what I've tasted of desire

by fiercynn



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiercynn/pseuds/fiercynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s purely association, but when Ms. Hudson thinks of Joan Watson, the first thing that comes to mind is cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	from what I've tasted of desire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilacsigil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/gifts).



> Title, of course, from Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice".

It’s purely association, but when Ms. Hudson thinks of Joan Watson, the first thing that comes to mind is _cold_ : not a reflection on her demeanor, but a flashback to the blizzard, the breakup, all wrapped up in one. What she remembers of that weekend is trying to hide her own shivers as she argued with Davis, Joan’s long fingers wrapped around a mug of tea, Sherlock heating stones to create some kind of warmth.

So when she comes back to the townhouse for her first cleaning session, it’s a surprise to see Joan wandering around the house in a tank-top and pajama pants, talking animatedly on her cell phone, a picture of vitality and comfort.

She spots Ms. Hudson and smiles, a _sorry I can’t say hello out loud_ smile as she continues her conversation, and Ms. Hudson just smiles back, disarmed. There aren’t many people that she’s used to seeing like this, not put together and utterly relaxed. Sherlock is different, as always, the exception that proves the rule, a ball of nervous energy at the best of times. It seems that Joan Watson may be at the other end of the spectrum: calm in the face of chaos, comfortable in her own skin. 

It’s a feeling Ms. Hudson craves for herself, after so long being defined by her relation to someone else - and that, she thinks, is when it starts. 

*

Though Joan and Sherlock’s schedules are unpredictable, there are some routines Ms. Hudson is able to pick up on whenever she comes to clean. There are Joan’s lessons, of course, which vary so much - everything from criminology to literary analysis to oenology. (Ms. Hudson herself is called on as an assistant coach for the latter, since Sherlock can’t actually taste any of the wines they are examining, and she had once let it drop to him that she had an interest in viticulture. Sherlock remembers things like that.)

Ms. Hudson’s favorite routine, however, is when she is finishing her work and Joan brings her a cup of tea, and sometimes they have a little time to sit together, for Ms. Hudson to try and soak in as much of that calm as possible. 

“Ms. Hudson,” Joan says once, then stops, frowning. “I feel silly calling you Ms. Hudson after I’ve known you for a while - what’s your first name?”

Ms. Hudson hesitates. She could give the easy answer, _Rachel_ ; she could give the harder one, _but I prefer Rach_. But there’s something about Joan’s openness, her frank curiosity, that makes her want to give the most complicated answer, the real one: that she’s never quite gotten used to Rachel, that the shortened nickname still isn’t close enough to “Rich” to feel familiar, that after all the other twists and turns and transformations her life has taken, Hudson is the only name that still feels like hers.

Joan nods, and doesn’t apologize for asking in the first place as Ms. Hudson herself would have done, which she appreciates, for some reason. “Sherlock calls me Watson, so I guess I should be used to it.”

“But you’re not?” 

“No,” says Joan, simply. “I like the name Joan.”

Ms. Hudson can’t help but agree.

*

She’s only peripherally aware of the whole debacle with Irene – all she really knows is that something has shaken Sherlock down to the core, and the fervor behind it is all too familiar to her. It should make her miss Davis, probably – except seeing that again for the first time is more repellent than anything.

She’d always thought that dependence was an essential part of passion and love – it had always been true in her past relationships, that feeling of _needing_ someone so much it hurt, and then the feverish bliss that came with actually having them. It made for the kind of thrilling relationship where she always felt as if they were reinventing love, as if no one else had ever experienced it this way before, made her feel like a teenager all the time.

She can see some of that co-dependency between Joan and Sherlock – it’s not romantic or sexual at all, but their partnership does seem somehow elevated, as if the two of them together are more than just a sum of their parts, something special. 

But neither is it the _only_ thing that makes them special.

The other thing she knows about the Irene situation is that it’s Joan that gets Sherlock out of it in her own classic way – she doesn’t pull him to his feet, but rather gives him a place to stand, and that’s a kind of dependence that Ms. Hudson thinks she might be able to live with, right now. 

Sherlock is a little different after the whole thing: subdued, yes, but also a little more settled, somehow. For the first few weeks after, Ms. Hudson watches Joan watch Sherlock with no small level of concern in her gaze, but that, too, fades.

*

And then instead of watching Sherlock while Ms. Hudson’s around, Joan starts looking back at her.

*

She really wasn’t looking for romance again so soon. In fact, she’d been actively avoiding it. But Joan is so different from anyone she’s ever been with that it doesn’t feel even remotely the same. She doesn’t _need_ Joan, and Joan doesn’t need her, and that lifts a burden she didn’t even know she was carrying, somehow.

But neither does she expect how thrilling it is, still, to want, without the same debilitating urgency to it, when Joan kisses her for the first time, setting down her wine glass to cup her hands around Ms. Hudson's face. Ms. Hudson is free to appreciate the way her fingers curve around Joan’s waist without needing to clutch, to suck her way down Joan’s neck without needing to leave a mark, to feel the heat pool in her belly with Joan says, voice husky, “Ms. _Hudson_ ,” without needing it to rage into a wildfire, unless they want it to. 

Maybe they’ll try that tomorrow, Ms. Hudson thinks; right now, all she wants is warmth.


End file.
